


Mixtape/Playlist for "The Doubtful Comforts of Human Love"

by PoppyAlexander



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mixtape, Playlist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3437894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>what is says on the tin!</p><p>List of songs, plus link to Spotify playlist</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Doubtful Comforts of Human Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2184438) by [PoppyAlexander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander). 



Here is a [**Spotify Playlist**](http://open.spotify.com/user/poppy_alexander/playlist/1RZl6wk9GCRNeCgMt0MRx7) of songs I associate with my ballet!lock/rugby!john fic, [_The Doubtful Comforts of Human Love_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2184438)

I am tempted to write a bit about what each song means to me in the context of the story, but I don't want to colour yr impressions if that's not what you would want! (I probably wouldn't want that from an author whose playlist I was listening to). If that's something that would interest you, let me know and maybe I will write up my associations.

 

 **Skinnny Love** by Birdy

 **Say Something** by A Great Big World

 **All Apologies** by Nirvana ("Unplugged in New York" version)

 **When You Were Young** by the Killers

 **1996** by the Wombats

 **Do You Love Me Now?** by the Breeders

 **A Question of Lust** by Depeche Mode

 **Somewhere Only We Know** by Keane

 **Chasing Cars** by Snow Patrol

 **Promises, Promises** by Naked Eyes

 **Breaking Us In Two** by Joe Jackson

 **All I Know** by Art Garfunkel

 **How to Save a Life** by the Fray

 **I've Been Loving You Too Long** by Otis Redding

 **God Only Knows** by the Beach Boys


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are some of my thoughts about the songs, how they relate to the story, how they inspired me, etc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is especially for Tori; I know she, at least, will read it. :-)

**Skinnny Love**  by Birdy.

So this was the very first song I associated with this story, when it was still embryonic, probably just after posting chapter 1. I heard it out of the blue (clicking around on YouTube I landed on Bella Ferraro singing this at her “X Factor” audition, which meant three things I had never heard of came together all at once) and immediately thought, wouldn’t this be lovely with some contemporary ballet, and omg, the WORDS.

I think of this mostly as Sherlock’s song, his POV. A lot of the reaction I’m getting from readers indicates they feel he has pretty much checked out of the relationship, and that his extramarital sex is, if not unforgivable, at least a very difficult hurdle (one which he’s put in his own way, I might add). But my take on Sherlock in the moment at which we find him is that he is immensely _vulnerable_ and feels—perhaps for the first time in his life—unsupported in a time of great change, and, although he would never admit it, is in great need of reassurance. We find him in chapter 1 already having had a few affairs, having thought about how they would hurt John and stopped them, then quickly resuming them (Sherlock and his canonical history of addictive behaviour, anyone?). . .but there were probably a lot of smoke signals being sent up before he got to such a dramatic, potentially dangerous point of acting out in that way, and either he was too subtle, they came out wrong, or John missed them (or all of the above). I think Sherlock in “The Doubtful Comforts of Human Love” is just waving like a drowning man, waiting to be noticed.

 **“Come on, skinny love, just last the year; pour a little salt—we were never here”** I think of Sherlock urging himself, his own sense of love and commitment to his relationship, which is threadbare (“skinny,” stretched to the breaking point because of the pre-chapter-1 stress of John’s injury and subsequent life changes), to just hang on a bit longer in hopes of things getting better. I love that image of pouring out a bit of purifying salt—frequently salt is used to cleanse a space before a ritual or spell is performed, or salt is used to draw a “magic circle” to keep someone safe during the working of magic. Just a small effort on someone’s part to sweep away the mess of bad, old, stagnant energy would be enough for him to “forgive and forget.” Whether he’s urging John to make the effort, or himself, I’m not sure.

 **“Tell my love to wreck it all—cut out all the ropes and let me fall”** OMG, this line. THIS LINE. Sherlock’s plaintive, silent, secret wish for John to do something unforgivable, to once and for all destroy the relationship, or simply to stop loving him (or to make himself unlovable!) so that Sherlock can just fall away from it. . . It’s such a sad plea: if only there weren’t so much tying us together— _if only you didn’t love me so much, and for so long—I could just let myself go, sink down, drift away_. This line stabs me in the heart every time. It’s like he wants John to let him go, because he can’t bear to “cut the ropes” himself.

I love the lines that evoke the messy back-and-forth, push-and-pull of a relationship in crisis. **“staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer”** (this line is, to me, metaphorical rather than representational—getting a good look at how we harm each other and pick apart each other’s personae, the “sink” being like a sinkhole, or just a low spot in the geography, rather than a literal kitchen or bathroom sink), **“I’ll be holding all the tickets, and you’ll be owing all the fines”** (the fallout of bad behaviour landing on the innocent partner).

 **“Skinny love, what happened here?” “If all your love is wasted, then who the hell was I?”** These just seem like artful versions of the kinds of things Sherlock might be asking himself, or shouting during an argument, when people often say careless things like, _“I feel like I’m wasting my time/energy/life/love on this.”_ And how words like that, said in the heat of a moment, can echo down the entire past of a relationship and make one question oneself in new, uncomfortable ways that are hard to dismiss even when the moment’s stress has passed.

 **“Now I’m breaking at the bridges and at the ends of all your lines”** This has less to do with fic-feels, but what a lovely, poetic lyric. It suddenly takes the lyric meta—the singer is “breaking” at the (musical) bridges, and at the “ends of all your [presumably meaning “about you”] lines”.  Beautiful stuff; from a writerly perspective, I just really love that it makes that shift from being inside itself to talking about itself.

 **“Who will love you? And who will fight? And who will fall far behind?”** Do I even need to say what this makes me think about? Sherlock asking himself about the relationship, Sherlock asking John about the relationship. . .This song means more to this fic than any other; it has inspired me and I have many times listened to it at the beginning of a writing session to immediately find my way back to this ‘verse and these men.

 

 **Say Something**  by A Great Big World.

Ugh, I don’t want to give away too much. But I heard this song for the first time while I was writing chapter 2, and it helped me clarify where we were going, especially in chapters 6 and 7.

 **“Say something. I’m giving up on you.”** It just really sums up the sense in this story that each of them, in his own way, has one foot out the door, and each is (whether they know it or not) just waiting for the other to give him a reason to stay (“ **I’ll be the one if you want me to** ”). There’s a bit of melancholy stuff here about recalling the earlier parts of a relationship (“ **anywhere I would have followed you** ”), and I think that even though John and Sherlock’s relationship is not new, they are at a point where they need to learn new ways to be together, and some of that comes through here in the lines describing feelings of ineptitude, not knowing how to love, “ **just starting to crawl**.”

 **“I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you.”** Please just stab my heart. **“SAY SOMETHING! I’m giving up on you!”** Honestly, that says nearly everything about these two, and watch the final two chapters for this to become even more meaningful. If “Skinny Love” is the perfect song to open the fic, “Say Something” is going to be playing over its climax.

That very last “Say something. . .” gives me a full body chill every time I hear it.

(BTW, piano and voice is a weakness of mine; and the place near the end of “Skinny Love” where you can hear the hammers of the piano clacking faintly between notes sends me insane.)

 

 **All Apologies**  by Nirvana ("Unplugged in New York" version).

This song was in the popular consciousness (for the few years after Kurt died, the “Unplugged” album was playing everywhere, all the time, in every hip boutique and coffee shop and rock bar between live bands) at the time our men got together in this ‘verse. I imagine John had this CD and played it a lot, making out with Sherlock in his bedroom at his parents’ house.

Plus. **“Married. . .buried. . .”** Need I say more?

 

 **When You Were Young**  by the Killers.

Another song that would have been popular in the early days of their relationship, as their careers began in earnest, probably when they moved into 221B together, in their late teens/early twenties. And isn’t it just a sort of anthem to first love? I love the Killers; they brought in a wave of alternative music (after the post-punk sludge and drudge of the Seattle sound, which dominated the ‘90s) that sounded like the music I’d first loved, New Wave, with pop song structures, more keyboards than guitars, poetic lyrics, and a sense of grandeur and style. I just think this would have been in the air, in their younger days, and they might have been listening to it on a sweltering summer night when it’s too hot to let yr skin touch when you’re sharing a bed, but even still, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other and ended up fucking, sweat-soaked and salty and loud even though the window was open.

 

 **1996**  by the Wombats.

I associate the Wombats with John because of my fic “Love by the Dozen” where I had them (actors/music magazine AU) watch the “Techno Fan” video and John commented on the singer’s “sweet, sad face,” and Sherlock got jealous. In this ‘verse they would have still been in secondary school (or Sherlock would have been; John would have just started university) in 1996, and I think they could probably identify with the sentiments herein, that things were easier and sweeter and simpler “back then.” (for me, it’s bring back 1986 except dear god please don’t because being a teenager sucked). **“It’s hard to beat those teenage kicks!”**

 

 **Do You Love Me Now?**  by the Breeders.

The Breeders “Last Splash” album came out in 1993, and I think Sherlock would have liked it. It might have been one the first records he bought with his own money! I like that. Headcanon accepted. Anyhow, this album was a big one in my own life, and this song sprang to my mind one day, immediately conjuring these two particular versions of our men. It’s an eternal question: **“Does love ever end when two hearts get torn away? Or does it go on and beat strong anyway? You loved me before. . .do you love me now?”** It’s just such a perfect song for that messed-up longing sense of wanting to be reminded that you are (still) loved. Particularly in the light of this fic, where they’ve been together so long that they have probably forgotten what it felt like to fall in love with each other—and how different that feeling is to being/staying in love later on—I think this song just sort of sings to the moment.

 

 **A Question of Lust**  by Depeche Mode.

This is so, so, totally and obviously “their song,” and always has been. They probably had their first kiss to it. Depeche Mode’s “Black Celebration” is a classic, brilliant, GENIUS album, and John definitely had it on cassette (Sherlock was too young and missed it, but he stole John’s copy once they got together, and John had to steal it back, and on and on). So they would have been snogging to this song in John’s bedroom as teenagers, but the lyrics are rather more sophisticated than first-love/early-relationship stuff. **“It’s a question of not letting what we’ve built up crumble to dust. It is all of these things and more that keep us together.”**

 

 **Somewhere Only We Know**  by Keane.

This is just another piano-and-vocals lovesong that hits me in the feels. It’s such a pleading, melancholy song, and it could be either of them just wishing for a chance to “go back”—if not to the place or the time, at least to the feeling—of cozy, uncomplicated, early love. **“Simple thing, where have you gone? I’m getting old and I need something to rely on. Tell me when you’re going to let me in. I’m getting tired and I need somewhere to begin.”** This one kills me. As I’m writing this I just had to skip the second half of the song and listen to the next one so I don’t cry. **“ _This_ can’t be the end of everything, so why don’t we go somewhere only we know.”**

 

 **Chasing Cars**  by Snow Patrol.

BUT THEN. This son of a bitch is next, so.

This song reminds me more of the early parts of the relationship, rather than the mess we currently find our men in. I actually find it sort of hopeful and cute/sweet. But there’s also an element of it that could apply to the present need to find a new way to love each other, the choices that need to be consciously made in order for them to move forward together, and that desire to reconnect with the simpler, early days when all they really had to worry about was loving each other, rather than bad knees and bad shoulders and career changes and when the bills are due. I do want to correct the grammar, I must admit.

 

 **Promises, Promises**  by Naked Eyes.

I honestly don’t remember why I included this. I have a headcanon that John is a New Wave fan, so this song would be in his consciousness if not his record collection. Its style and its New Wave feel kind of “goes” with these two, in my mind, and this song is not especially deep, lyrically, but it is a song about one of the many ways we can hurt each other over a long term relationship. The idea of not being able to trust/rely on each other is a major theme in the fic, and that’s here, too.

In a similar vein, I had originally also associated Nik Kershaw’s **“Wouldn’t It Be Good”** with this fic, but the version on Spotify is not the original, but a soundalike???!!! So I left it off the playlist. Go find the video on YouTube if you want to hear that song (it was also featured in—and possibly inspired—the movie “Pretty In Pink”).

 

 **How to Save a Life**  by the Fray.

I know this song is much more literal than the way I hear it—it’s about saving a friend from suicide—but I think it can just as well be interpreted a bit more metaphorically, and in that way, it works. In fact, of all the songs here, I think this one is probably the most fitting for these two—with only very slight rewriting, these lyrics could be a “final confrontation” scene in this story. **“Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend somewhere along in the bitterness and I would have stayed up with you all night had I known how to save a life.”** I mean, every lyric in this song could be easily converted into a discussion Sherlock and John would have at that “come to jesus moment” where it’s time to finally sort it all out.

 

 **I've Been Loving You Too Long**  by Otis Redding.

What can I say?

Long, long ago, I saw a movie (I thought it was “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” with Iain Glen and Joanna Whalley but now I doubt myself) with a short contemporary dance set to this song, and I’ve carried it in my heart ever since. Otis Redding was uh. mazing. What a voice! And I wanted to write Sherlock’s solo at his gala night as a dance he created for John, to one of John’s favourite songs. The fact this song’s primary sentiment is **“I’ve been loving you too long to stop now,”** is just icing.

I think the primary tension of the story is not wanting to stop loving, even though going on loving feels so, so difficult. It’s not exactly fighting for the relationship, but more like the moment of desperation just before one decides to throw oneself into the fight.

 

 **God Only Knows**  by the Beach Boys.

There’s so much angst, I wanted to end on a hopeful note, with the playlist as well as (I hope) the story. I do just love the “wall of sound,” and the sentiment **“God only knows what I’d be without you”** fits this story so well (you’ll see!). This is a couple who have been together their entire adult lives. They basically grew up together! What would they be without each other? And that idea can really go either way—you realize yr partner is integral to who you are, or you strike out—alone—to find out who you are without yr partner. Guess we’ll see which it is, when the fic’s done!

 

Hope I haven’t bored you to death!


End file.
